On October 19, U.S. District Judge Neil Wake issued a preliminary injunction to block a new law that bars public funding for general health care services provided by abortion clinics and doctors. The law is designed to strip Planned Parenthood of state funding and was pushed by supporters as a way to target the “indirect” funding of abortions. Judge Wake ruled such a possibility was a fiction given that the limits on Medicaid reimbursements for covered services only pay approximately half the cost of delivering health care, leaving no excess funding that could possibly be used to fund abortions.

Arizona is asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturn that ruling and let the law take effect immediately.